Safa Joudeh writing from Gaza for Al Jazeera:
Jalal's story echoes the accounts I have heard many times before from my grandfather and others who lived through the Palestinian 'nakba' or catastrophe in 1948.
"We fled the bombing of British warplanes, we locked our house and hid in the hills for days, each day thinking that tomorrow we would return, but tomorrow never came," my grandfather tells me.
"It has been 60 years and now it is happening again. This time we can't walk south to escape the bombing, like we walked from Asdood to Gaza. This time they want us to jump into the sea.
"But we won't, we'll die standing with our heads held high this time. We've learned from the past that it's better to die defending than to run and live.
"We've learned that life has no meaning when your roots, your birthright, your past and your present is stolen from you," he says.
